Evolution: more genomic evidence of pre-planning Part One (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 21, 2021, 13:25 (1310 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] the extra cells allow a greater degree of complexity by having more neurons to work with from the start.

dhw: You are stating the blindly obvious, and ignoring the point that the only brain we know operates by RESPONDING to new requirements. It does not change in anticipation of new requirements, which is the reason you give for brain expansion.

DAVID: You are still ignoring the fact that sapiens arrived with 150 cc more volume than needed. Our brain now responds to new use because of fact the extra size/neurons permitted complexification to select from the excess.

I keep disputing what you keep insisting is fact. Yet again: my proposal is that the extra 150 cc WAS needed to implement a new requirement, and it continued to be used until 250,000 years later, when more new requirements would have required further expansion, but instead complexification was enhanced, and THEN the previously essential 150cc became redundant . I keep answering your objections, and you keep ignoring my own: WE KNOW THAT THE MODERN BRAIN CHANGES IN RESPONSE TO NEW REQUIREMENTS, NOT IN ANTICIPATION OF THEM. WHY WOULD IT HAVE BEEN DIFFERENT IN THE PAST?

dhw: I responded to your point that early sapiens’ lifestyle hardly differed from erectus, which according to you means that the newly expanded brain contained excess cells that were only used later. I pointed out that according to my theory, the improvements that required additional cells (e.g. the design, making and use of the spear) would not have changed the lifestyle. The hunter with a spear is still a hunter.

DAVID: And with little more brain usage. You support my point.

You keep missing my point: the spear did not change the lifestyle, but it required the extra cells. The same process would have continued right through to H. sapiens: expansion to meet new requirements; final expansion 315,000 years ago. But next time expansion would have been required, complexification took over, and made some previously essential cells redundant.

DAVID: The advantage of the extra cells I presented above, to allow the greatest degree of complexity to cover all new current needs as efficiently as possible.

dhw: You’ve got it! In ALL cases of expansion including our own, the extra (not excessive) cells covered the new need, and then all current needs, through complexification.

DAVID: There is no evidence the excess cells were used for 250,000 years and then discarded. When not chosen for complexity they were dropped.

There is no evidence that your God kept popping in to operate on the brains of sleeping hominins and homos in order to prepare their brains for some future requirements! What do you mean by they were not “chosen” for complexity? Since the only chooser you believe in is your God, are you saying that your God deliberately gave early sapiens 150 cc unnecessary cells, and 250,000 years later decided he didn’t need them for complexification? Why do you find your God’s little blunder more convincing than the proposal that enhanced complexification made previously needed cells redundant?

DAVID: The official theory is when language appeared it required the recruitment of several brain areas to develop and tie to each other in stronger networking fashion.

Precisely. The brain areas were already there, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that they were not being used. Do you really think our ancestors never communicated? But the new requirement (a more complex form of language) required new networks (connections plus a degree of restructuring), i.e. complexification.

DAVID: Same with all other developments. We had a brain wanting for developments, no matter how hard you obfuscate with verbiage about total brain use 315,000 years ago. At least I use current theory.

What do you mean by “wanting for developments”? All brains would have complexified until the capacity for complexification was exhausted, and then new cells were needed. But in sapiens' case, new cells would have been impractical (possibly because they would have caused anatomical problems) and so the capacity for complexification was enhanced. How does this contradict current theory? And why do you persist in ignoring current knowledge, that the brain RESPONDS to requirements and does not rearrange itself in anticipation of future needs?